The basement is cleaner, compared to the rest of the house. The dust that sprinkled the furniture and ground is nowhere to be seen and it's oddly void of anything but a chalk pentagram in the center of the room, a man lying inside it. He's there too. The man has shaved brown hair and his arms are covered with tattoos. He looks like your typical gangster or punk, wearing leather boots and a gray tank top. Belle approaches the pentagram, he notices that some of the chalk marks seem new, fresher, like they had been drawn recently.
"Hey! Wake up!" Belle calls out, kicking the man off the pentagram. The man awakens with a jolt and a scream.
"Please don't kill me!" He begs.
"Woah woah, calm down, I'm not gonna kill you," Belle reassures the man.
"H-how can I be sure, you could be tricking me again!" The man panics.
"Look, I'll stay on the other side of the room, but could you explain what's going on?" He asks the man, who has now crawled into a fetal position, back lying against the wall.
"Fine, just don't come any closer." The man says, "I don't know how long I've been down here, but some friends asked me to come here with them to investigate, they said it was haunted. I didn't believe them at first, but then stuff started happening. Items were being thrown at us and the temperature kept dropping. I wanted to leave, but my friends wanted to check the basement. We saw an unfinished pentagram and filled in the rest with some chalk we found. But it summoned 'that thing', it attacked us, we ran away and split up. I was hiding in the downstairs bathroom when I heard the voice of one of my friends, another one of my friends replied to the voice, but then he started screaming. It was horrible, I still hear the screams every time I close my eyes. 'That thing' took over my friend's bodies and killed them one by one, he chased me down to the basement and said he was going to kill me too, but then he disappeared." The man finishes his story.
[Evidence Collected: 3/3]
{i wouldve pissed myself}
{you wouldnt catch me in that house}
{people just go to haunted houses for fun???}
'Hm, it seems I have all the evidence I need to piece the story together.' Belle glances at the pentagram again, noticing a tiny smidge on the edge of it, breaking the pentagram. 'Aha, so that's how it is.'
"Right, I think I know what happened here, but before I explain that, what's your name?" Belle asks the man.
"Ryan, my name is Ryan Pharley," Ryan answers. 'This is the guy I'm looking for, perfect.'
"You and your friends must have summoned a malicious spirit," Belle explains to Ryan.
"What? What are you talking about?" He questions.
"I mean, you filled in a pentagram, maybe that's a bad idea if you're already being haunted." Belle deadpans. Ryan's face turns red with anger, but he seems to think better of saying anything and keeps his mouth shut.
"You know about the family that died here, right?" Belle questions.
"Of course, my friends told me before we went in," Ryan replies.
"I hypothesize that the little girl of the family saw a spirit, and that spirit told her to summon him with the pentagram. He possessed her dad and he killed the girl and the mother, then the spirit killed the father. The pentagram must've gotten damaged somehow, causing the spirit to leave, and the family's restless ghosts must've been haunting the place to keep people from filling in the pentagram." Belle explains.
"How did you figure all that out?"
"I found a message earlier saying 'He did it' so I assumed the murderer was a man, then I found a little girl's diary that talked about her imaginary friend and the pentagram. The last clue was your story and the pentagram, it seems like this spirit is only summoned through the pentagram and can take over people's bodies." Belle informs.
"That…makes sense." Ryan agrees.
"Mhm, now if you'll excuse me, do you know where the chalk is?" Belle asks.
"Yeah, right over…what do you need chalk for!?" Ryan shouts.
"Ouch, you're gonna burst my eardrums, screaming like that, relax, I'm just gonna summon the spirit to have a little 'talk'" Belle states, holding up his axe.
"But, won't the spirit take over your body or my body!" Ryan yells.
"I won't let him take over my body, if he goes into your body I'll just beat you till you pass out." Belle chirps, grabbing the chalk off the ground where Ryan pointed.
"Can I have a say in this?! I don't want to get beat up!" Ryan cries out.
"It'll be fine," Belle replies flippantly, taking the chalk and redrawing the line. The chalk lights up a dark red color as the room turns deathly cold, Belle can see his breath in the air and hear Ryan's teeth chattering behind him. He watches as a shadowy figure appears in the pentagram before slowly becoming more solid to reveal the figure of a tall man. He has short black hair and is wearing a black suit. The dark energy surrounding him is more potent than with the ghost family earlier. Ryan starts rocking back and forth in the corner of the room.
"If you're so scared just leave already," Belle says, turning to Ryan.
"You think I can! I'm too scared!" Ryan shouts back, Belle turns around again to face the ghost man, but realizes he's gone.
"Ah, shit." He turns back to Ryan, finding him standing up, a manic gleam in his eyes. His facial expressions start changing at a rapid pace, from sad, to angry, to happy, finally settling on scared.
"Help me, it's in my body!" He pleads, getting down on his knees and writhing in pain. Belle slowly approaches Ryan, who is convulsing on the floor and lifts the axe, bringing the cheek of the axe down on Ryan's head, and knocking him out. The evil presence floods out of Ryan's limp body, forming the figure of the ghost man.
"Haha, this should be fun!"